The Origination Disease

I love this post from the inside the firm of the future blog, authored by Christopher Marston from Boston Massachusetts. Chris posts that "fixed-pie thinkers need not apply." He’s referring to the mentality of lawyers who have been infected by the origination disease. You know this disease. It’s the one that drives lawyers to compete directly against each other within the context of the same firm. You would recognize it if you saw it. It is the same greed that drives lawyers to drain every penny from their clients’ pocket. It is the desire of lawyers in traditional firms to "originate."

Many traditional firms have partnership formulas, which are somehow tied to origination. Origination is supposedly this magical benefit to the firm, which no one else can match. It is the bump in the partnership formula which allows a small number of partners, or even one partner, to take most of the profits.

Here’s what Christopher has to say about the "infected lawyers"…

Everyday infected lawyers go to work and fight over origination credits, pad their time sheets or try to out-bill their colleagues in order to get one of the "fixed" number of partnership positions at the firm. Firms get into bidding wars over the "fixed" number of graduates in the top 2% of their class (as if such a designation were the ONLY redeeming quality of significance to a firm). What are you working for? There are only 24 hours in the day . . . the game is "fixed" folks! You don’t win in a competition where the prize for the pie eating contest is . . . well . . MORE PIE! That is, unless you are infected with fixed-pie disease. Somehow they just never learn. . . and so I will continue to watch them chase down my pennies much to my amusement (fortunately for them . . I mean my pennies . . . they will never be out of a job!) Life will continue to throw these poor souls crumbs of bread and the rest of us will watch them posture for their crumb slices as those of us who truly understand value create loaves of bread from air!

The most interesting part of this post is not the tragedy of the origination mentality. It is the fact that people think in terms of the "fixed-pie." What Chris is suggesting here is that fixed-pie thinkers assume there are only one hundred units to go around. They want 65% of the partnership profits. They design the numbers to achieve that goal.

But those of us who don’t think in terms of fixed-pie see the endless limits of a good business model and tremendous customer service. We don’t think that a dollar we earn has to be taken from a partner or an associate. We wake up each day thinking about how good work infects a firm with solid profits, no matter what. We see the possibilities as infinite.